Grace Qi
Program: Immunology
Current advisor: Albert H. Kim, MD, PhD
Undergraduate university: Duke University
Research summary
Glioblastoma (GBM) is a devastating primary malignancy of the brain for which there are currently no effective immunotherapies. Despite the success of checkpoint blockade (anti-PD-1 and anti-CTLA-4) in treating other solid tumors, the benefit of such therapies has proven minimal in GBM clinical trials. There are many possible explanations for this, including the relatively low mutational burden of GBM, the immunosuppressive nature of the brain tumor micro-environment (TME), the inability of antibody therapies to access the brain due to the blood-brain barrier, and the lack of classical lymphatic drainage that limits the trafficking of APCs and T cells to and from the brain parenchyma. It is likely a combination of factors that limit the efficacy of checkpoint blockade in GBM patients, though it remains unclear what additive therapies might augment the response. The goals of my project are to determine how checkpoint blockade modulates effector and memory T cell populations in the brain TME and to elucidate the determinants of T cell recruitment to the CNS.
Graduate publications